** Darllenwch y blog yn Gymraeg (Read the blog in Welsh)
The whole experience with Ball State University has been great from the start. The standard of content and skills possessed by Ball State students was clear from the outset.
The project started in December for us students with Skype calls between all students and staff from the two courses, Sports Broadcast and Ball State’s Sports Link program. The calls were a chance for the two courses to get to know each other as well as an opportunity for us to introduce different Cardiff Met athletes who had stories to tell.
The Americans were looking for six or seven different athletes to be part of a documentary. They wanted these athletes to be from different sports such as football, rugby, athletics, cricket and netball.
Our job after they decided on the athletes was to arrange calls between the athletes and the Ball State crew, as well as gather any information we needed about our athletes, find athletes and coaches to interview, and look for filming locations around Cardiff.
When they arrived, the students from the two Universities were divided into groups and each group was responsible for helping with one particular story. I was responsible for the story of Jenny Nesbitt, an international athlete for Wales and Great Britain, and also a member of our course at Cardiff Met.
I attended a filming session at Cardiff Castle where the Ball State crew gathered footage of Jenny running around the castle and park, as well as attending her interview back on campus. This was a great experience for me to see how much filming goes into a documentary and the differences between conducting interviews in America compared to us in Wales.
While they were here, we had an amazing storytelling masterclass from their program director, Chris Taylor. This lecture transforms the way I think about storytelling on screen and has allowed me to think more creatively and improve my understanding of how to create engaging video content.
During our time together we spent a lot of time exploring Cardiff and the surrounding area, with trips to St Fagan’s, Principality Stadium, Sophia Gardens Cricket Ground as well as watching Cardiff City, Cardiff Devils and Celtic Dragons.
We also took a hike up Pen Y Fan where the Americans enjoyed the views of the mountains and snow at the top! I made a video of this trip you can watch at the bottom of the page!
The highlight for the Americans was a night at Bingo Lingo in Cardiff Bay, they can’t believe we play bingo like that! We took them out to a number of Wetherspoon’s pubs in Cardiff, including watching the 6 Nations match between England and Wales at the Prince of Wales pub. But the less that is said about that game the better I think….
The experience of working with Ball State University students was incredible, seeing the different cultures coming together and working well together. I feel like we’ve all made friends for life and I’m looking forward to meeting them again.
Many of us from Cardiff Met have made plans to head over to Indiana and see the Sports Link set up and the students in action, it will be great to meet up with everyone from the trip!
I’m looking forward to seeing the outcome of the transatlantic project, I’ve seen some clips of all the different documentaries of the project and can’t wait to see the final product on June 30th.